Starship Configurations

[BP]

I'm pretty new and am trying to get up the curve on ship configurations. So far I've been equiping 2 drives on every ship. I thought that would give me faster interstellar cruising (and make it less likely a ship gets stranded due to a shot up drive) but can't tell about the speed. Am I wasting a slot on a spare drive? Also can't figure out how many generators to equip. I've been using 2 or 3 standard (fusion age) but keep running out of energy. I have a frigate with 2 adv. lightning beams & 1 defensive laser powered by 2 fusion generators. I get 2-3 shots with the lightning beams at 100% power and after that they're down to ~16% and I end up moving in close and firing the defensive laser. Just doesn't seem right.

[Fasani]

Yep, multiple drives make your ship faster. I like to put 3 or 4 on my colony ships. I go with 2 on my ships early in the game, and usually drop down to 1 drive in Anti-Matter unless it's a big galaxy or there are no good wormholes around.

Another benefit of drives is that they act like batteries in combat. Two drives go a long way to powering your shields and weapons.

If I'm using energy weapons, I favor one gun with three or four generators. It seems like more guns is better, but it's really better to rapid-fire a weapon at full power than shoot 2 weapons at minimum power. Rather than using 2 energy weapons, try 1 energy weapon and a secondary non-energy type like torpedos or missiles.

My favorite trick is to forget shields in the Singularity Age and go for Adv. Bio Armor. That stuff absorbs a sick amount of damage, and uses no energy...so your weapons and cloaks get all your power.

[madmax88]

What you wanna do is check your weapons enery use and then compare that with the recharge rate of your generator.
See the adv. lighting beam requires 18gw to fire fully charged while one fusion generator recharges 1 gw/turn and can store 10gw each. SO basically, after firing 2 adv.lb , they'll start using all of the generators' energy.
As fasani said drives often have a reserve of energy that you can use during combat (rocket drive=20gw, electromagnetic drive=40gw).

So one of the first things you want to research during the atomic age is the electromagnetic drive. With two of those on your starship, you'll be a lot more efficient in combat:

2 e-drive = 80gw
3 f-generators = 30gw + 3gw/turn
1 computer
2 adv.lighting beam = require 36gw

With this, you can easily fire 3 turns in a row. Often in the early stages of the game, the computer will often have some kind of screen to protect himself. That usually absorbs your first shot entirely, so i like to overload my weapons(lighting bolt icon) one turn so i can do more damage the first turn (if not destroy). <img src="wink.gif" border="0">